IBAC report finds developer made suspect payments to councillors

A Victorian property developer who once had lunch with Premier Daniel Andrews “bought access to decision-makers” by paying former local mayors and Liberal Party members about $1.2 million, showing how limits on laws regulating lobbyists leave politicians vulnerable to corruption, the state anti-corruption watchdog has found.

Victoria’s Independent Broad-Based Anti-Corruption Commission (IBAC) tabled its Operation Sandon report on Thursday, finding property developer John Woodman made payments totalling about $1.2 million to former Casey mayors and Liberal Party members Sam Aziz and Geoff Ablett – including cash payments in suitcases and shopping bags – in return for support for lucrative planning decisions.

Sam Aziz (left), John Woodman and Geoff Ablett all received adverse findings in the IBAC report.Credit: Marija Ercegovac

Operation Sandon is the most lengthy, costly and sweeping investigation of raw corruption in Victoria since IBAC was established more than a decade ago.

“The investigation showed the extent to which a property developer and consultant such as Mr Woodman can invest across the political spectrum to buy access to decision-makers at the local and state government levels,” the report said.

Developer John Woodman on St Kilda Road on Thursday morning.Credit: Eddie Jim

If the report’s 34 recommendations are accepted, the IBAC inquiry will trigger the biggest shake-up in Victoria’s local government and planning laws in decades, including the possibility of stripping of planning powers from local councils and the expanded taxing of windfalls from land use changes, and the major tightening of donation and lobbying laws.

Responding to the Operation Sandon report, Premier Daniel Andrews said in a statement: “What went on at the City of Casey was completely unacceptable and the government sacked the council in 2020. However, it is clear from the report that more work must be done.”

He said the government had already implemented what he branded the toughest political donation laws in Australia.

“Our reforms have drastically reduced the size of donations, and make sure Victorians know who makes and receives them in real time. These reforms are currently the subject of a legislated periodic review and the government looks forward to receiving that report,” Andrews said.

He flagged the government would limit councils’ powers in planning decisions.

“It is the clear position of the government that the role of local councils in significant planning decisions should be reduced and we will have more to say on this matter,” Andrews said.

The Sandon investigation centred on issues first publicly raised by The Age in 2011 and again in 2018 around land deals at the City of Casey and the outsized influence of flamboyant developer and planner Woodman.

In the 304-page report, IBAC gives adverse comments against a long list of political and business figures, including sitting Labor MP for Cranbourne Pauline Richards. It is unclear why Richards is listed as having adverse comments made against her, which do not amount to wrongdoing.

Deputy commissioner David Wolf said it related to Richards’ dealings with Woodman. “It’s more the nature and involvement in the donations scheme, the receipt of donations, the meetings with the donor, and allocation of donations across the party.”

She received a $20,000 donation during the 2018 election campaign and a further $10,000 was donated to other Labor candidates at her suggestion.

IBAC’s investigation focused on four planning matters involving Woodman and his associates, all of which were highlighted by a Sunday Age story in October 2018.

The key case study in the report was his bid to rezone industrial land in Cranbourne West to residential, a move that would have netted construction giant Leighton Properties – now owned by CIMIC, Woodman and others – a combined tens of millions of dollars.

After The Age’s revelations in October 2018, then-planning minister Richard Wynne rejected the rezoning in 2020.

Sandon found that Woodman and his associates “directly paid” councillors Aziz and Ablett in exchange for their support, donated to state candidates and MPs who they believed could help, and funded a residents’ action group which actively backed the rezoning.

Andrews was privately examined as part of the five-year inquiry, and was cleared of any wrongdoing. He was questioned over a lunch he had with Woodman and Labor-linked lobbyist Phil Staindl at the Flower Drum in Chinatown in 2017 and separate lobbying from Staindl at a fundraising event in early 2019 over the Cranbourne West rezoning.

Andrews said he could not remember having the 2019 conversation with Staindl or the contents of it. But Andrews said some of Staindl’s recollections – which the lobbyist later conceded may have included some exaggerations – did not “ring true”.

Andrews said he would not have suggested to Staindl he had any role in the rezoning decision.

Woodman and his entities made a total $530,700 worth of donations to the Liberals between 2010 and 2019 over 97 transactions, according to the Operation Sandon report.

That was more than what was donated to Labor, which received $439,268.

Woodman paid $70,000 for membership of Enterprise Victoria, a Liberal fundraising arm, splitting payments into $10,000 lots paid by separate entities.

“The link between the level of financial contribution and the influence expected in return is evident in a lawfully intercepted telephone conversation between Enterprise Victoria’s executive director and Mr Woodman in February 2019,” the IBAC report states.

“In the conversation, the executive director was seeking to finalise a large financial commitment from Mr Woodman. They offered him personal meetings with the [then] Liberal Party leader [Michael O’Brien] and state president as an incentive. In response, Mr Woodman noted his interest.”

The meetings did not take place, IBAC heard.

But Opposition Leader John Pesutto and shadow attorney-general Michael O’Brien said in a statement the IBAC report showed the government was led by an “evasive premier who refuses to take any responsibility”.

“This damning report shines further light on the culture of secrecy, cover-ups, cosy relationships, dodgy payments and favours for mates that’s flourished under Daniel Andrews,” they said.

“The premier won’t apologise for cancelling the Commonwealth Games, but he’s happy to apologise to a property developer who paid thousands of dollars to get access to him.

“If you have enough money and the right connections you can have lunch with the premier and do business with the Andrews government.”

The report is uncomfortable reading for the premier, his Labor government and his Liberal opponents, with Woodman a well-known and generous donor to both sides for decades.

The report found that “as a group”, Casey councillors “exhibited and tolerated behaviour that did not meet the standards required of them”.

It found that Aziz and Ablett promoted Woodman and his clients’ interests on council in exchange for payment and in-kind support, both failing to declare conflicts of interest over their involvement with Woodman or his companies on many occasions.

Ablett and Woodman, in a written response to IBAC, denied wrongdoing.

Ablett said he rejected any inferences of corrupt, illegal or unethical conduct and that he received any payments, gifts or benefits in exchange for favourable council outcomes. IBAC rejected Ablett’s submissions.

Woodman denied he had corrupted Casey Council and said it was a “false statement without evidence” that his firm relied on a core group of councillors to advance his interests.

“There is no evidence that the work of Mr Woodman as a consultant was to improperly influence, i.e. dishonestly or unlawfully, or unduly influence decisions by council via any or all the mechanisms alleged.”

IBAC said in response it rejected Woodman’s assertions and said he had directly paid councillors Aziz and Ablett for their support. Aziz did not respond to the report, but has previously denied he was corrupt.

Leighton Properties said it could not respond to adverse comments in the report as it did not have the documents relied upon by IBAC. It said any improper conduct by former employees and consultants was taken outside “the scope of their authority and contrary to the terms of their employment”.

Casey, in Melbourne’s south-east fringe, is one of the biggest and fastest-growing municipalities in Australia where instant fortunes are made whenever councillors and planning ministers earmark humble cow and vegetable fields as new housing estates.

At the local level, councillors are required to declare conflicts like gifts, payments and donations from an individual or company involved in matters before the council. Numerous councillors over many years failed this simple task, the report found.

In a statement accompanying the report, IBAC acting commissioner Stephen Farrow said planning decisions had an impact on the liveability of all Victorians, so it was vital that such decisions be protected from improper influence and corruption.

“We found that safeguards around deciding whether to amend a planning scheme were bypassed,” Farrow said.

“The planning amendments we looked at as part of this operation reached the desks of decision-makers in local and state government, without strategic reasons for their implementation.”

Farrow said the investigation showed how ministers, members of parliament, councillors, ministerial advisers and electorate officers may be targeted by lobbyists, and “how limitations in the current regulation of lobbyists present corruption vulnerabilities”.

The report includes 34 recommendations to promote transparency in planning decisions; enhance donation and lobbying regulation; improve the accountability of ministerial advisers and electorate officers and strengthen council governance.

A special IBAC report calling for reforms to donations and lobbying laws, tabled in a 2022, also emanated from the Sandon inquiry, which was held up for months by legal challenges from Woodman.

So effective was Woodman in winning access and influence that IBAC heard through 40 days of public hearings and 800 hours of recordings that he had made Casey councillors his “puppets” and a group of sitting and aspiring state MPs effectively part of his “team”.

The Andrews government sacked the entire Casey Council in 2020.

Sandon also highlights how Woodman and associates sought to influence state planning decisions, showering state and federal politicians with donations and political spending totalling almost $1 million over nine years and 180 transactions – the bulk of it never disclosed – and targeting local MPs and candidates from both major parties.

The five-year IBAC investigation included the use of secret phone taps, photographs and footage and unprecedented weeks of public testimony.

Former mayor Amanda Stapledon, who took her own life in early 2022, was referred to in the report as Councillor A. IBAC found she regularly declared a conflict of interest at council in her dealings with Woodman, but in incomplete terms. She was reported as saying she had been “bitterly disappointed” in herself.

Councillor A was listed among those people with adverse findings against them but IBAC noted, due to her passing, she was unable to respond or refute any allegations, comments or findings.

IBAC vowed to review its practices after criticism in June from a coroner who investigated Stapledon’s death.

It accepted recommendations from coroner David Ryan after he found delays by the watchdog affected Stapledon’s mental health before she took her own life.

She had not been informed that IBAC was not pursuing criminal proceedings against her. Ryan said Stapledon’s uncertainty about whether she would be prosecuted caused her significant stress.

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